Aren't they amazing?

Question

How do Christian nuns and priests manage to keep their carnal desires to themselves?

Answer 1

The Pope Breaks his Silence on the Sex Abuse in the Church


For years, the Vatican viewed reports about sex abuse in the Chatholic churches as attempts to discredit the church or as part of an orchestrated campaign against celibacy.

In November last year Pope John Paul II used the Internet to issue a document that contained apologies to victims of sexual abuse by members of the clergy. At the presentation of the Pope's letter Cardinal Dario Castrillon Hoyos, head of the Vatican Congregation for the Clergy, implied that, because of the cases in the U.S., the sex scandals were a problem only in English-speaking countries.

But recent revelations in the Pope's homeland show that the problem is more widespread. In February, the Polish daily Rzeczpospolita published a story alleging that the Archbishop of Poznan, Father Juliusz Paetz, made a habit of sexually assaulting young clerics from the local seminary. According to the report, Paetz's behavior became so notorious that the rector of the seminary, Father Tadeusz Karkosz, forbade the archbishop to visit the college!

But the allegations were not new. The paper charged that Paetz's inclinations had been known for at least two years, with several students quitting the seminary after they claimed to have been molested. A month after the allegations first appeared Paetz issued a pastoral letter read in parishes last Sunday 17 March saying, "I deny all the information presented in the media."

John Paul has been described as particularly saddened by sexual harassment allegations leveled against the archbishop of Poznan in the pope's native Poland. Archbishop Juliusz Paetz, who worked with John Paul at the Vatican and was sent by him to Poland in 1982.

Again, Pope John Paul II on Thursday 21 March 2002, broke his silence on the sex abuse cases rocking the Roman Catholic Church, saying the "grave scandal" was casting a "dark shadow of suspicion" over all priests.

In an annual message to priests worldwide, the Pope said "as priests we are personally and profoundly afflicted by the sins of some of our brothers who have betrayed the grace of ordination."

He said they had succumbed "to the most grievous forms" of what he called, using the Latin phrase, "mystery of evil". Grave scandal is caused, with the result that a dark shadow of suspicion is cast over all the other fine priests who perform their ministry with honesty and integrity and often with heroic self-sacrifice," the Pope said.

John Paul said the Church "shows her concern for the victims and strives to respond in truth and justice to each of these painful situations." It was the first time the Pope publicly addressed the issue since widescale accusations of sexual misconduct by priests surfaced in the United States in recent months.

The accusations have led to the resignation of one bishop, from Palm Beach, Florida, and tarnished the reputation of Cardinal Bernard Law of Boston for failing to take action against a child-molesting priest. There have also been scandals elsewhere and the problem has worldwide implications for the Church.

In January, the Catholic Church in Ireland agreed to a landmark 110 million dollar payment to children abused by clergy over decades. More than 20 priests, brothers and nuns have been convicted of molesting children.

Sexual abuse cases involving cover-ups have also been reported in England, France and Australia, among other countries. A lawsuit has been filed against the Rev. Ronald H. Paquin, a Roman Catholic priest who was suspended for allegedly molesting children and sent for treatment in 1990.

The lawsuit accuses him of sexually abusing a teen at the treatment center in Milton, Mass., in 1990 and 1991. Paquin denies the allegations in the lawsuit, which also names the Archdiocese of Boston as a defendant. The archdiocese had no comment on Wednesday.

Cardinal Edward Egan, leader of the Archdiocese of New York, made his first statement on the scandal on Tuesday. He vowed to investigate all accusations of molestation by priests, but stopped short of saying that the archdiocese would report to law enforcement all such allegations. He did, however, encourage anyone with an accusation to go directly to the authorities.

Sexual Abuse of Children:

In Ireland, Colm o'gorman is suing the Pope. Although his allegations of abuse against Father Sean Fortune led to legal proceedings against the priest on 66 counts of sexual, indecent assault and sodomy, O'Gorman has yet to receive an apology from the Catholic Church.

He is also suing Fortune's bishop, Father Brendan Comiskey, who was reportedly first informed about allegations against the priest in the early 1980s, but nevertheless allowed him to continue to minister in the southern Irish town of Fethard-on-Sea. The reluctance of the church to acknowledge the crimes of its representatives has forced O'Gorman and others to resort to the law.

A BBC TV program last week alleged that Fortune was abusing boys over a 20-year period, a situation that was so widely known that his parishioners complained about his predatory behavior to Bishop Comiskey's predecessor, Bishop Herlihey, as well as to the Vatican's ambassador to Ireland, the Papal Nuncio, and ultimately to the Vatican itself. The only result was that Fortune was moved from one parish and then sent off to study media communications in London and to seek psychiatric help.

If the church was unwilling to act, the state has sometimes stepped in. Since September 2000 people who had attended Ireland's 52 Industrial Schools until they were closed down in the 1970s have been giving evidence of the abuse they suffered to committees of enquiry set up by the Irish government. Some 3,000 men and women have come forward with stories of physical and sexual abuse against members of the Christian Brothers, the Sisters of Mercy and the Oblates of Mary Immaculate!

Jacinta Madden, a lawyer working for a Dublin-based firm representing over 700 claimants, says that "the church is defending its stance very strongly, which is a little ambiguous, because recently they contributed 110 million dollar to the fund for compensating these people." With the threat of legal action looming, the Christian Brothers took full page advertisements in the national press in March 1998 to apologize to anybody abused by members of the order.

That was one of the first acknowledgments that showed how concerned the church has become, feeling that its moral authority has been undermined and recognizing that its clergy has been severely demoralized by the seemingly endless allegations.

There have been many cases across Europe against men of the cloth who have abused their positions within communities to gratify their pedophile inclinations. The Vatican has only recently begun to admit that it has been slow to recognize the problem.

However, in a landmark case in France last year, Father Pierre Pican, Bishop of Bayeux-Lisieux, received a three-month suspended sentence for failing to inform the police after Father René Bissey confessed to him that he was sexually abusing children.

Bissey was jailed for 18 years in 2000 for raping one boy repeatedly and abusing 10 others between 1989 and 1996. Pican's defense claimed that the bishop had been motivated by his priestly obligation to keep Bissey's remarks secret, even though Bissey admitted his actions outside the confidentiality of the confessional.

In England and Wales, the church has set up the Catholic Office for the Protection of Children and Vulnerable Adults. This body is based on a report into tackling pedophile activity in the church made by a former Appeal Court judge, Lord Nolan. In presenting his report, Nolan said he hoped that it would "help to bring about a culture of vigilance where every single adult member of the church consciously and actively takes responsibility for creating a safe environment for children and young people."

The new body is chaired by the Archbishop of Birmingham, the Most Reverend Vincent Nichols, who believes that "We were behind with our understanding of pedophilia." He acknowledges that "the learning curve over the past 15 years has been very steep," but is sure that the new body will "not lag behind best practice, and in fact be a model for it."

Now the French church has created a consultative committee on sexual abuse against minors and has taken its first action: advising the removal of Father Gérard Mercury from his parish in Bordeaux after he had been convicted of molesting minors for a second time.

Despite the attempts by the church to put its house in order, the underlying attitude of denial still makes it difficult for victims of sexual abuse to come forward. In common with many other abuse cases, the church seemed unwilling to take action against one of its own.

The Vatican's Attitude towards Islam


The Catholic thinking about Islam began to change at the beginning of the 20th century. Before its beginning, there had been changes in the sphere of mundane literature but on the religion plane the situation was not altered. Catholic writings insisted that our Prophet Mohammed () is a false Prophet, and the Qur'an is a book of errors; and the truths found in it are copied from the Bible…etc!

All these classic verdicts have been discussed and proved to be false. The Vatican itself has stopped to repeat them, though it has not yet confessed that our Prophet is an authentic Apostle of God and the Qur'an is a revealed Holy Book, a thing we Muslims do not expect Vatican to do.

The development of the Vatican situation towards Islam has taken so long time from Pope Paul VI who has been reported to be the first Pope (1073-1085) so well-disposed as regards the Muslims since the time of Gregory VII. That situation has gradually improved. In the second half of the 20th century, the two parties -Muslims and Christians- came closer to each other in order to start a dialogue between them in spite of the actual hindrances on the road.

Now I would like to remind the viewers, in brief, of how the Vatican's attitude developed and how it -in September, 2000- shocked all non-Catholic believers all over the world when it claimed that Catholic only will enjoy salvation on Doomsday, though "God's word points to Jesus as the only way to salvation (Acts 4); Jesus is not a monopoly of the Catholic church!

This passive change in the Vatican's attitude opposed the steps taken in the many conferences held by Vatican and the efforts given by Pope John Paul II himself. Embarrassment will be overwhelming all Muslims, Jews, and Christians till the Vatican authorities find an explanation.
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Let us compare some of the comments of the Catholic Church to the passive attitude of the latest word on the subject. These comments decided that: "The plan of salvation covers also those who accept the Creator, among them first of all the Muslims, who- while confessing their belief in Abraham- together with us worship the only and merciful God that will judge people on Doomsday."(No.16)

To remove all doubts, let us quote other active Catholic verdicts; Here they are: "The Church looks with respect onto the Muslims as well worshipping the only God, alive and self-contained, merciful and omnipotent, the Creator of heaven and the earth, the one who spoke to people. They endeavour to whole- heartedly subordinate to his mysterious resolutions following the example of Abraham, to whom the Islamic faith willingly refers. They adore Jesus not as their God but as the Prophet in fact; they "worship" his Mother Mary and sometimes even "invoke" her piously, Moreover, they wait for Doomsday, when God will be judging all the people, raised from the dead. They appreciate moral life, therefore, and they adore God mainly by praying, alms and fasting." (No.3)
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The picture of Muslims quoted above is sound except worshipping Mary, because Muslims worship Allah only. All creatures should worship Him alone; Mary, Jesus, Mohammed, and all Prophets have to worship Him alone. Moreover, Muslims never invoke Mary who is quite beloved and respected by all Muslims.

The main point to be noticed in the above quotation is the opposition between the sound picture of Muslims and the late Vatican's claims that only Catholic believers deserve salvation on Doomsday.

Their opposition becomes clearer when the stages of the dialogue between Islam and Christianity is remembered.

- In 1965, the cardinal Franzy Kanig from Vienna delivered a lecture on monotheism in Al-Azhar University in Cairo; the audience was so great; Thousands of professors and students listened to him eagerly.

- The Pope John Paul II took intensive steps to make the Catholic Church in contact with Muslims. He made journeys to Asia in 1979, 1981 and to Africa in 1980, 1982, and 1985, with the aim of strengthening the ties with the representatives of Muslims. He invited the Catholics to co-operate with Muslims on behalf of the culture of love and solidarity.

- In 1979 John Paul II gave a very important speech in Ankara, Turky, to thousands of Muslim listeners. He said: "My brothers, when I think of that spiritual inheritance, of the value it has for man and society, of the fact it might render especially to the young, the orientation in life and the possibility of filling the void caused by materialism, and that it might build the foundation for socio-political structures, then I ask a question: Isn't it the urgent thing then, to approve and develop the spiritual links uniting us, with the aim of protecting and shaping the social awareness, moral values, peace and freedom, on behalf of the whole of mankind, to which the (Catholic) Council encourages us?"

Unfortunately, nothing of these great aims has been achieved. Instead, the late passive announcement seems to put an end to the hopes of unity and rapprochement.

Last September 2000, in Italy a Catholic cardinal invited the political authorities to prevent Muslims from immigration to Italy and, at the same time, to encourage Christians to do. The cardinal called the authorities to prevent building mosques, because Muslims refuse to convert into Catholic Christians, opposing the friendly gestures from the Roman- Catholic Church who gave back the Muslims the mosques in Toled taken over in 1085, and in Grenada in 1492. The Vatican agreed that Muslims would build new mosques in Rome and Madrid. Now seven minarets of mosques are towering 8 Km from the St. Peter Basilica in Rome.

The situation has lost the friendly gestures. In fact hostile ones have started to replace them; The plans to convert Muslims into Christianity may be the most hostile, causing ruin to the climate of dialogue and rapproament. Muslims wonder why Christians let atheism spread among Europeans and Americans, and concentrate their activities on converting Muslims into Christianity through We - Muslims- don't have such plans at all!
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For us, Muslims, it is known that all Christians believe that we don't deserve salvation on Doomsday. We really have the opposite belief that we only will deserve salvation in the Hereafter. In spite of this religious fact the dialogue between the two parties has gone on. What we Muslims refuse is the denial of our right to build mosques, to keep Muslims, and the religious discrimination in immigration.

Answer 2

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Answer 3

i think priests and nuns should answer this, we are not in the position to think and comment for them.

Answer 4

It is called aiming for a greater joy and pleasure.

Answer 5

while i grew to become right into a youthful fellow, we used to declare: - "Confinorious!" as in "That lady is amazingly confinorious!" or "each and everything is confinorious!" which ability it is all sturdy. yet another previous observe, grew to become into "copesetic " each and everything is copesetic! my very own customary is , "ab - so - flippin' - lute - ly !"

Answer 6

I thought that's what altar boys were for

Answer 7

how can you be so sure? several priests marry, you know...

Answer 8

They dont

Answer 9

Manage? They don't thats how. ;-)

Answer 10

prayers work

Answer 11

keep praying